Posts Tagged ‘Super Crate Box’

Is it a bird? No. Is it a plane? No, not really. Is it a sort of pogoing, semi-submersible death machine? Yeah, pretty much. It’s also the new game from Vlambeer, and it’s out today. Here’s what I made of it.Read the rest of this entry »

Nuclear Throne is an “action roguelike-like”: a top-down shooter with permadeath, set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland and starring a cast of mutants who need to hoover up radiation to gain in power. It’s fast, frantic, and made by Vlambeer, the two-man indie development studio behind similarly compulsive shooters Super Crate Box and LUFTRAUSER.

Nuclear Throne (formerly Wasteland Kings) is currently available in Steam Early Access, and like those other games, it already feels great. “Feel” is a poisonous word in games criticism though, and I was unsatisfied with the normal language used to describe games like this: “meaty”, “weighty” and “crunchy” only gets us so far.

I wrote to Vlambeer game designer Jan Willem Nijman about how you make pixels bullets feel powerful, and about finding a better language to talk about videogames. He was gracious enough to do the hard work of explaining why Nuclear Throne feels great for me.Read the rest of this entry »

VLAMBEER NEVER STOPS. I know. They told me so. Seriously though, Luftrausers isn’t even off the launchpad yet, and the Super Crate Box developer is already making admirable progress on a very impressive-looking action-roguelike called Wasteland Kings. I actually had the chance to play it and discuss its various ins-and-outs with Vlambeer recently, so expect impressions very soon. But until then, know this: it’s a rapid-fire, deliciously crunchy randomized romp starring a cavalcade of characters from Vlambeer’s past. And the craziest part? The arcade action maestros are going to stream a very large portion of its development – with you playing along at home via Steam Early Access.

Ever had one of those days where it feels like the whole world’s out to get you? Like you just can’t win? Like you are a magnet whose polarity is perfectly calibrated to attract gigantic, writhing jerkswarms who will stop at nothing to steal everything you love? Congratulations: you might be Super Crate Box and LUFTRAUSERS (among many, many other things) developer Vlambeer. Between countlessclones and a recent theft of what basically amounted to their entire company during E3, the two-man team has been plagued by a string of bad luck so crushing that you’d think it was a giant joke.

So Rami Ismail and JW Nijman laugh at it. They laugh and count their blessings.

It’s out! Super Crate Box is out! Go skedaddling over to the siteimmediately and download yourself the finest and most frenetic freeware game we’ve seen all… month? Perhaps, perhaps. I’ve posted the trailer again below, just in case you missed me talking about this excitedly earlier in the week. Now you can talk about it excitedly yourselves!

You know, the Disc Gun gets the bad press, but I’d say the Mines are the cruellest weapon in this game. Getting to a crate at the top of a crowded level, armed with nothing but mines? That’s a very bad time.Read the rest of this entry »

So it turns out you all need to put at least half an hour aside this Friday. Why? Because that’s when indie freeware title Super Crate Box is released. Dutch devs Vlambeer sent us a preview build, and it’s inspiringly competent stuff. You know condensed milk? Super Crate Box is like that, only with fun instead of milk.

You can watch a video beneath the jump, but the set-up is as follows: Collect crates to increase your score, avoiding the enemies that never stop dropping from the ceiling. Each crate equips you with a randomly determined, nuanced weapon, and if an enemy makes it to the hole at the bottom of the level they drop back out of the ceiling in a new, nightmare-fast form.Read the rest of this entry »